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Savory Summer Lunch Crepes

April 25, 2009

My take from a half hour at the Clark Park Farmer’s Market.

There’s been a lot of chatter about the upcoming Farmer Season throughout my circle o’ friends and the blogosphere. I’m loving the debate about which markets are the “most anticipated” – of course, Headhouse Sq and Phoenixville are my standards (both are frickin awesome), but I felt compelled to check out the much-loved Clark Park this weekend.

So, Saturday morning, I (lovingly) tossed the dog in the car and head down to west West Philly, got crazy lost, fought through the chaos that is the Penn Relays, and eventually made it to Clark Park.

As a Temple-ite, I found very few reasons in the past few years to cross over the bridge and into University City. And even less reasons to get allllll the way west, into the guts of 44th & Baltimore Pike. But it was awesome – I don’t know where the hell I’ve been, but it was colorful, with gorgeous big Victorian houses, cute streets, and little restaurants at every turn. I was shocked. And the husband was concerned – the phone call home went something like:

Me: “We’re at 44th & Baltimore, what are you up to?”

H: “What do you mean you’re at 44th & Baltimore?! Get out of there! What the hell are you thinking?”

Me: “No, baby, it’s beautiful down here -there’s this park and a Dickens statue and a farmers market-“

H: “Baby, are you ok? Have you been kidnapped or carjacked? Is Shelby ok?”

Me: “Seriously, we should look at moving here – it’s gorgeous. I’ve gotten greens and eggs and tons of mushrooms. There’s Amish peoples. I’ll be home soon for lunch, k?”

Silence. Followed by more silence.

H: “Mushrooms or shrooms?”

Yeah, fair question. Still, the boy got hooked up! when I got home. I mixed up crepe mix from my slightly altered Joy of Cooking recipe and then added my farmer’s market finds for a pretty damn good lunch.

Savory Summer Lunch Crepes

Savory Crepe Mix*

Makes 2, 8″ crepes

1/2 cup flour1/2 milk2 eggs2 tblsp melted butter1 tsp salt

Whisk ingredients together until flour is fully incorporated, being sure to scrape the sides. Cover and set aside in the fridge for at least a half hour, but up for 2 days.

The Innards

1 tblsp bacon fat (if you don’t set aside and save your bacon grease, you should, but 1 piece of bacon, cut up, will work as well, and you’ll have bacon in your crepe! Yum!)3 garlic cloves1 cup of freshly rinsed spinach3 button mushrooms, rinsed and chopped1 sausage link – in this recipe, I used a garlic & pepper chicken sausage link from the marketParmesan cheese to taste**Butter, to coat the pan

*Make this first, since it needs to sit ideally for a 1/2 hour to settle .**Ricotta tastes pretty fantastic in this as well, but not when it’s moldy, which is how I found the ricotta in my fridge.

Early summer spinach and a gorgeous bag o’ portebello and button mushrooms, still dirty.

Heat pan to med-high and add the bacon grease to an 8″ saute pan and allow to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the garlic and let it saute for about 30 seconds before adding the still-damp spinach and stirring until all are wilted. Reduce the heat and add the mushrooms, stirring to heat through and coat with the yumtastic bacony flavoring. When heated through, remove from pan and set aside in a small bowl lined with a paper towl to drain a bit of the grease. .

If needed, add more bacon grease to the pan (just a little) To saute the sausage, I recommend cutting off the casing and using a wooden spoon to chop it up. This will make it heat through faster, and since this is lunch and you probably started cooking when you were already hungry, faster is better.

Rise/wipe down your sauce pan, place back on burner at medium heat and coat with butter (coat generously to avoid sticking). When butter is fully melted (but not browning), pour half of the crepe mixture into the pan, swirling the pan to coat evenly.

Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees.

As the crepe mixture begins to bubble on the side, loosen crepe with a spatula. After about a minute, flip (although cooking time will vary, so keep an eye on it). Allow to cook for 30-60 seconds on the second side before removing to plate. Repeat with second crepe.

Add crepe innards mixture to the waiting crepe, spinach on the bottom, sausage on top, and top with a little parmasan (ricotta would be equally awesome). Roll like a burrito (or like a crepe) and place into small baking pan. Sprinkle top with a little bit of parmasan.

Bake for 5-10 minutes, or until cheese is melted. We’re not trying to cook it here, just trying to get everything warmed through and intermingled.

Even with an abundance of practice, when I transfer these guys from the pan to the plate, a little bit of the mixture tends to fall out. Place this on top of the crepe and suddenly it looks like you did that on purpose.

Add a glass of white wine, a giant deck umbrella, and you have a pretty awesome Saturday afternoon.